The rise and fall of the Abbasid dynasty?

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The Abbasids rose in the year 750 to replace the Umayyad dynasty, by uniting several groups which had grievances against the Umayyads. This included the Shia, who liked the fact that the Abbasids, unlike the Umayyads, had a direct familial tie to Mohammed, many religious figures who thought the Umayyad dynasty had become corrupt and impious, and non-Arabs who resented the domination of major offices in the Caliphate by Arabs.

The dynasty lasted 500 years until it was finally wiped out by a grandson of Genghis Khan, but it's peak had ended at least 300 years before that. Long before the Abbasid Caliphate was officially destroyed, it had ceased to have real power.

There were many causes of the fall, but probably the main one was a failure to find a good solution to the difficult problem of holding together a very large empire in the fairly primitive circumstances of the early middle ages. The solution the Abbasids used was to delegate power to local rulers who passed their own authority on to their sons. These local rulers tended to become independent powers, who gave only formal allegiance to the Caliphate.

The Abbasids looked for ways to strengthen their control and to unify their empire. They stationed army units at military posts to defend the empire quickly. They persuaded many people to accept the Abbasids’ rule. They said that all Muslims were equal, Arab or not, and Christians and Jews were encouraged to serve in the government. The most talented people would help run the empire.
In 762, they moved their capital city from Damascus to Baghdad. It was located on the Tiber River, and it was closer to their power base. An Abbasid caliph called Baghdad “A marketplace for the world.” Baghdad grew vary famous around the world. People from China, India, Northern Europe, and Africa all came to trade at Baghdad. Baghdad prospered and grew a lot. Around forty years later, the population grew to more than 900,000 people in Baghdad. Farmers used their irrigated lands to grow staples like rice, sugar cane, and cotton. People made clothes and shoes for people to wear, and merchants paid a lot of money just to get clothes and shoes. In a few years, the caliphs were very irresponsible for many unfortunate things that happened to many merchants. They were very fond of easy living. They didn’t do much to protect the merchants from bandits. It hurt trade, and they began to lost money. For that, the Abbasid caliphs raised taxes. The Turks and Mongols came around and took over the empire. The Turks invaded cities and destroyed many places, but they still let the caliph live. The Mongols came and they left the Abbasid empire to ruins. They killed the caliph, and the Abbasid dynasty died along with the caliph.

Abbasid (Arabic: العبّاسيّون, al-‘Abbāsīyūn) is the dynastic name generally given to the caliph of Baghdad, the second of the two great Sunni Muslim caliphates of the Arab Empire, that overthrew the Umayyad caliphs from all but Al Andalus. It was built by the descendant of Muhammad's youngest uncle, Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib. It seized power in 750 and shifted the capital from Damascus to Baghdad. It flourished for two centuries, but slowly went into decline with the rise to power of the Turkish army it had created, the Mamluks. Within 150 years of gaining power across Persia, they were forced to cede power to local dynastic amirs who only nominally acknowledged their power, and had to cede Al Andalus to an escaped Umayyad royal and the Maghreb and Ifriqiya to independent entities such as the Aghlabids and the Fatimids. Their rule was ended in 1258, when Hulagu Khan, the Mongol conqueror, sacked Baghdad. While they continued to claim authority in religious matters from their base in Egypt, the dynasty's secular authority had ended. Descendants of the Abbasids include the al-Abbasi tribe who live northeast of Tikrit in modern-day Iraq.